Pretty much all of my goals for 2015 are based around one idea: creating an intentional, fulfilling life that reflects my values and priorities.

While I spent many years on the rat race of entrepreneurship—working late into the night, burning the candle at both end and chasing the next thing, I just don’t have it in me anymore. I’d rather curl up and watch a movie with my kids, read a good book or, well, sleep.

When I shut down BundleoftheWeek.com last year, I took a steady position with the team at Ultimate Bundles in author, affiliate and bonus partner recruitment. It’s a job I love, and the people I work with are amazing.

Between my commitment to Ultimate Bundles and my desire to sleep 12+ hours a day (thank you, pregnancy hormones!), the last month has been…difficult.

And as I looked at this week’s calendar, with our new Live course topic going live, some pretty intensive tasks that need to be done at Ultimate Bundles, and a variety of spring activities for the family, I started to feel that familiar stress building.

But here’s the thing: I’ve really enjoyed the last three months without that feeling, and I don’t really have any desire to end up back there, especially the week before Easter when my mind and spirit want to focus on things that matter for eternity rather than just the here and now.

So I’ve decided to take a week off. There’s plenty in our archives, plenty in the blogosphere as a whole and plenty in real life to keep you busy, so most of you probably wouldn’t even have noticed I was taking a break if I didn’t mention it. And the funny thing? That might have bugged me a year or two ago, but I’m okay with it now.

That said, before I sign off, a couple quick things:

The Ultimate DIY Bundle Sale :: For just 48 hours, the Ultimate DIY Bundle Sale is available again with dozens of resources to help you rediscover your creative side. Whether you want to make adorably decorated cakes and cookies, choose paint colors that are just perfect for your home, put together handmade gifts for Mother’s Day or just make time for creativity in your own life, you’ll want to check out this sale. {But hurry, because it ends on April 1st at 9am ET, and once it’s gone, it’s gone for good!)

I’ve done these questions of the day sporadically over the last year, but I may just be pulling them out of my pocket more often over the next few weeks as I struggle to balance homeschooling and blogging and working with the symptoms of the first trimester.

I am flat-out exhausted, sleeping 10-12 hours a night (with a bout of insomnia in the middle of the night almost every night, ugh!) and I’m so nauseous that sometimes it’s all I can do to just curl up on the couch and stare at my phone.

So far, I’ve been eating carbs like crazy (with a few handfuls of Starburst jelly beans in between), since the only time the morning sickness goes away is while I’m actually eating, but that plan is not sustainable unless I want to gain all 35 pounds in the first trimester!

So today I want to know…

What is your best morning sickness remedy?

What foods did you crave during the first trimester? (For me, it’s spicy food!)

What foods made your stomach turn?

How long did your morning sickness last (each day and into your pregnancy)?

Every few months someone will write a news article, blog post or opinion column about the joys or dangers of getting married young, with each side staunchly defending their belief that it’s either really, really good or really, really bad.

Because my parents faced so much criticism for “letting” me get married at 20 years old, I’m always tempted to jump in in defense of young marriage. Except pretty much everything I want to say has already been said.

Yes, when you get married just out of high school or college, you grow up together, which could be considered a good thing or a bad thing.

Yes, you’re still “finding yourself” and you will change over the course of your marriage.

Yes, you’re “tying yourself down” when other people your age are still playing the field and exploring the world.

But people change in every decade of life and there will always be people you haven’t dated, things you haven’t tried by yourself.

Yesterday, as I was reading Atlas Girl by Emily Wierenga, I was reminded of the not-so-simple piece of the puzzle that determines whether a marriage thrives or fails.

It has nothing to do with age or stage of life or personality or interests…it all boils down to commitment.

In Atlas Girl, Emily shares her struggles with anorexia as a newlywed, and her husband shows amazing commitment to her and their marriage. He does give her an ultimatum at one point, but he remains committed to her and their marriage, no matter how much work it takes to get her healthy again. He holds her in bed when she can’t fall asleep. He makes her meals that he knows will just get thrown away. He cries with and for her because he can’t make her eat.

While the book is written from Emily’s perspective, I can only imagine the heartbreak and commitment it took for her husband to keep trying…a lot like my own husband’s commitment during the times when I’ve experienced both antenatal and postpartum depression (which manifests itself as irrational anger in my life).

And to be clear, I’m not talking about some unemotional commitment…a decision to stay in a marriage no matter what, living side by side but not really connecting. I’m talking about a wholehearted commitment where you keep trying, even when it hurts, even when the other person is rejecting you, even when it doesn’t feel like things will ever be good again.

(I’m also not talking about cases of abuse or unrepentant adultery, which clearly call for a different response.)

This kind of commitment isn’t glamorous. It’s not romantic in the traditional sense of the word. And it’s certainly not easy. But it’s the same no matter how old you are when you get married. We all bring baggage and garbage and sin to our marriages, and the only way to wade through them to get to the other side is with this kind of commitment.

It’s about giving more than 50%, more than meeting in the middle. That level of commitment—to be loved like that even when you’re at your worst—builds trust and love and a strong marriage.

Although my girls have been listening to audiobooks since they were tiny, it’s only been this year that I’ve discovered the beauty of audiobooks for myself.

But once I got started, I was hooked.

When I’d tried listening to audiobooks in the past, I always felt like my mind was wandering too much and I was missing large portions of the book. However, with some practice, I’ve learned to develop that focus (and I’ve found that speeding up the audio helps!), and if my mind is still wandering, I just turn it off and try again later.

The real genius of audiobooks, though, is that they allow you to combine a physical task that is not really conducive to reading a book with the mental task of listening so that you’re making the most of your time and “reading” more books. Always a good thing when your “to read” list is growing faster than you can actually read!

Here are the 7 times when I listen to audiobooks during the day…

1. While walking.

It was listening to audiobooks while walking that made me fall in love with them in the first place. Being able to “read” and walk at the same time is great motivation to get out there and walk, and I find that I can walk faster and farther when I’m listening to a good book like 41: A Portrait of My Father or Quiet.

2. In the shower.

I know it sounds funny, but I actually love to listen to a book while I shower (although I’ll admit that this is where I am most likely to let my mind wander as well). Our shower is large, with a big shelf built into one wall. By turning my phone upside down in the corner of this shelf, the sound is magnified pretty significantly so that I can easily hear the story over the sound of the running water.

3. In the car.

Because one of my reading goals this year is to read more classics, I often save a book like Black Beauty or The Hobbit to listen to in the car when the girls are with me. And when I drove to my mom’s in January for my personal retreat, I chose books about creativity, work and productivity—like The Creative Habit and Die Empty—to listen to on my way down and back.

4. At bedtime.

My girls are better at this than I am, and they listen to a story every night before bed (and I’ll often hear them turn it back on if they wake up in the middle of the night). But bedtime is a great time for adults to listen to a book as you fall asleep as well. The Audible app even has a sleep timer so you can set it to turn off when you fall asleep.

5. While doing chores.

I’m not a huge fan of folding laundry, but I do find that I dread it a little less when I know I have a good book to listen to while I fold. It’s a little harder to listen to audiobooks when I’m doing something in the kitchen because I tend to get interrupted a lot and our house is noisy, but the laundry room is tucked around a corner and I often hide in there and listen to Team of Rivalsfor 20-30 minutes without interruption!

6. During wait time.

Although I might default to reading a book during wait times, listening to a story with earbuds is also a great way to get some extra listening time in while waiting to pick up your kids from an activity or waiting for a doctor’s appointment.

7. While you pursue another hobby.

This might be my favorite of all. With audiobooks, I no longer have to choose between reading or pursuing another hobby. Instead, I can listen to a book while I doodle or crochet or bake or whatever it may be. While hobbies shouldn’t be all about “getting more done”—and I do think we need time to just let our minds wander—I do love adding a good story as background for a more physical hobby some of the time!

This post was originally published several years ago but continues to be one of our most popular. If you’re looking for simple, effective strategies to get organized, start here!

The number one question I get from my readers is “help, I’m so overwhelmed with my home, where do I start?”

Maybe you can relate?

Sometimes it isn’t so much about starting with this pile here or that pile over there but more a matter of introducing a few daily organizational habits to help keep the clutter and chaos from becoming more than you can manage.

Here are 10 things you can do today to help you stay organized.

1. Utilize a list notebook.

Often chaos ensues because we are trying to juggle too many things in our brains. We can’t focus on any one thing because we are trying to remember everything. It’s exhausting to say the least.

Grab yourself a notebook and just start brain dumping all that needs to be done. Be very detailed with this list because the more steps you list out, the less you have to try and remember. It makes a huge difference to your mental clutter even if you aren’t able to get everything crossed off that list in one day.

source: organizing junkie

2. Update your family calendar.

Now take your list to your calendar (and if you don’t have a central family calendar, get one quick!) Make sure your calendar is updated with appointments, school events, things to bring, etc.

For instance, if you need to bring cupcakes to school on Friday, add a note to Thursday’s square to pick them up or make them that day.

3. Menu plan for today.

You may not be menu planning for the whole week yet, but you can menu plan for TODAY. Instead of waiting until the witching hour (isn’t that the worst!), plan what you’ll eat that night in the morning.

Check your freezer, pull some meat out, look up a recipe and you’re all set. 10 minutes of pre-planning will again allow you to stop worrying about it for the rest of the day and free up all sorts of head space. See the pattern here?

Mental clutter = overwhelmed

4. Never leave a room empty-handed.

One of my best tips for staying on top of clutter is to make sure you take something with you every time you leave a room. Do it as you go…dirty dishes, laundry, toys, mail, you name it. If it belongs in a room you’ll be going to or passing, bring it with you!

5. Assign a task to your children.

Too many moms are trying to do it alone. Get your kids involved. Start today. Assign them each one task off your list to complete. I know it’s often faster for us just to do it ourselves but the training has to start somewhere.

source: threeifbybike

6. Create a donation station.

Every home needs somewhere to collect the things we no longer need. Grab yourself a big box, mark it with the words donation station and let everyone know what it’s for.

7. Add 5 things to that donation station everyday.

Have every person in your household collect 5 things today to add to that donation station. Set a timer and make a game out of it. See who can be the first to collect their 5 things. Before you know it, that donation station will be full!

8. Create an “I’m Outta Here” shelf.

Similarly you need an errand bin by your front door. I call it my “I’m Outta Here” shelf and it’s somewhere I can collect things that need to be returned to a friend, mailed, returned, etc. That way when I’m heading out I can easily remember what needs to be done and tasks don’t get backlogged.

9. Do a 10-minute tidy before bed.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Do a 10 minute tidy each night before bed to set up your next day for success. Plug in cell phones, check and update your calendar, tidy surfaces, make lunches or whatever it is that needs to be done in order to start the following day on the right foot. It makes a world of difference!

10. Check your attitude.

Finally, stop beating yourself up! Coming down hard on yourself does nothing except make you miserable. Tomorrow is another day. Celebrate every accomplishment no matter how small.

Happy Organizing!!

What daily habits have you implemented to stay on top of clutter and chaos?

Laura is a wife and mother to three great kids, lives in Alberta, Canada and is an addict of all things organizing. You can find her blogging regularly at I’m an Organizing Junkie, and is the author of Clutter Rehab: 101 Organizing Tips & Tricks to Become an Organization Junkie and Love It!

From Instagram: Playing under the big blue sky. {A walk a day keeps the post-nap temper tantrum away!}

This week we experienced our first 70 degree day of the year…and (hopefully) our final snow of the season. On the first day of spring. I love snow, but enough is enough; I’m ready to be warm! The girls and Sean also got one last ski trip in, including the girls’ first run on a double black diamond. They definitely take after their Daddy, because I’m happy on green trails!

In the coming weeks, we’re finishing out our CC school year (although we school year round) and also the final practices for the kids musical that our church does each year. Last year at this time Sean had a broken knee; this year I’m so nauseous and exhausted that I could happily stay in bed all day. Next year I’ll know to plan differently for March.

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

When “we” (meaning society as a whole) talk about pregnancy and miscarriage, we usually approach it from one of two angles—the heart-wrenching pain of a baby lost or the relief of a pregnancy that’s made it through that “danger zone” into the second semester.

Talking about the fear of miscarriage while actually in the first trimester feels a bit taboo, as if we’re tempting fate or claiming the inevitable. If we’re really honest, sharing your pregnancy at all during the first trimester is a bit taboo itself (and it seems as if the number of people who wait to share their pregnancies has grown even in the past 12 years since my first pregnancy). I’m not criticizing anyone’s personal decision to wait—and I think it would be fun to keep it a secret that you share only with your husband, even if there is no way I can personally pull that off for more than 24 hours—but I do disagree with the cultural pressure to wait to announce a pregnancy in case you miscarry.

I think that taboo has grown because it’s all a little bit embarrassing: What is wrong with me that my body can’t carry a baby the way it’s supposed to? How will people deal with my grief if I lose this baby when to them the baby is nothing more than a “potential human”? (Even Sean, who very much believes birth begins at conception, has trouble attaching to our babies before they really begin to kick and roll and show their personalities.) And because, let’s face it, a miscarriage is a lot like a period, except your heart and your tiny baby are bleeding out as well.

When I had my first miscarriage at 21 years old, while living thousands of miles from everyone and everything I knew, I was blindsided. Theoretically, I knew that miscarriage was a possibility, but I didn’t have much experience with it and I’d never spoken to anyone about their miscarriage. In fact, I can only think of a couple people I even knew had had miscarriages at that point.

But honestly, I think we’re failing young wives and mothers—especially those who are the first in their peer group to get pregnant—by not talking about it more. They’re led to believe that they should keep their pregnancy a secret “just in case,” and they don’t know how to react when a miscarriage happens, especially if no one even knows they were pregnant in the first place.

This is why my girls know about the babies we’ve lost. We’ve named them, we honor their place in our family, and we talk about them regularly—whenever the girls have questions, when we unpack or put away their special Christmas ornaments, when Father Day’s rolls around each year and I think of the four babies who were each due right around then.

It’s why we tell our girls about our pregnancies right away, reminding them that some of our babies die and go to heaven before we get to hold them but choosing to celebrate their lives, however short they may be. If the cause of my miscarriages is genetic and my girls are more likely to experience losses of their own, I want them to have a framework for dealing with that early—not to induce fear and worry but to help them through the grief if it happens.

So today I’m going to talk about it, about the fear of the first trimester when you’ve lost four babies already, about the panic and the tears and the worry.

***

All of my miscarriages have started the same way: A spot of red blood on the toilet paper or in the toilet, followed by cramping and heavy bleeding within 24 hours.

It seems a cruel irony to me, then, that the early months of pregnancy include an increased amount of vaginal discharge, the feeling of wetness constantly leaving me to wonder if I’m now bleeding.

Despite the surprise of this pregnancy and the fact that we truly felt done and are still trying to work through some of the repercussions of adding another baby at this stage, I am head over heels in love with this little one already. Not just the idea of another baby (and truthfully, if I miscarry, we probably will not try again) but with this baby.

I am trying not to obsess over my symptoms and fears, but I lost my naivety about the guarantees of pregnancy a long time and many miscarriages ago. And while I can’t help but give this baby all of my love, my heart feels like it could shatter into a million pieces at any moment.

I’ve found myself in tears more than once just thinking about the possibility of miscarriage, and I hold my breath every time I go to the bathroom, afraid that this is the moment I’ve been dreading.

Truthfully, this pregnancy has been nothing like my others. It began with implantation bleeding (something I’ve never experienced). I’ve had cramping off and on from the beginning (something I’ve never experienced). And I’ve had spotting that has not turned into a miscarriage (something I’ve never experienced). While I did experience heavy bleeding from a placental bleed with my second daughter (who was termed an “inevitable miscarriage” but is now known as our miracle baby), the four times I’ve had spotting have all ended in miscarriage within a day. This time, I had some spotting over the weekend, but it’s been 6 days, the spotting has stopped, and I’m still sick and exhausted…symptoms I don’t take for granted.

In so many areas of life, we have at least some semblance of control. We baby proof our homes, make rules for what our kids can and can’t do, weigh the risks and benefits of various activities to try to keep our little ones safe. We try to make sense of tragedy to reassure ourselves that it won’t happen to us. And deep down, I think we believe that if we try hard enough, if we do everything right, we can avoid it.

But miscarriage isn’t like that.

While I believe that folic acid might play a role in my own miscarriages, and doctors can sometimes prescribe progesterone to support a pregnancy, there’s often nothing we can do to determine whether a baby will live or die in the early weeks of pregnancy. Y’all, that’s hard. Each day, I vacillate between, “If I’m going to miscarry, please let it happen sooner rather than later” and “Please, no blood” every time I go to the bathroom.

I want a list of rules, a list of things I can do to keep this baby safe and healthy and strong, but the rules that do exist—sleep on your left side, no deli meat, soft cheeses or sushi, don’t change the cat litter, don’t smoke or drink, and so on—haven’t played a role in my miscarriages anyway.

In other words, it’s out of my control, and no matter how much I want this baby, how far I’m willing to go, my only option is to wait and see, with prayer and hope and fear and love all coiled together like a knot in my stomach.

This picture is far from Pinterest-worthy, but I just had to share this recipe with you, and I promise you this is a recipe you want to try!

I’ve loved poppy seed muffins since my best friend’s mom used to make them for us in high school, and I’m so glad to have passed that obsession on to my own girls.

The other night the girls began making plans to make poppy seed muffins for us for breakfast, and I started hunting down recipes based on the ingredients we had on hand. (My favorite recipe is the orange poppyseed bread from The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook.)

With some tweaking of this recipe, we ended up with a light and fluffy breakfast cake, and it turned out so well—much better than I expected, honestly.

Note: We’re not big on overly sweet breakfasts, but you could juice another clementine and make a glaze if you’d like something more decadent for a brunch or special occasion!

Self-care is something I’ve been blogging about more often in recent months, not because I’ve arrived in this area but because it’s something I’m learning about and experiencing myself.

I’ve been writing about self-care to remind readers—and myself—of its importance and the benefits and so on—and yet it’s only been in the last few weeks that I’ve seen clearly how it really does benefit everyone around me. Not just in some vague, theoretical sense, not just a little bit, but in really big, tangible ways. In the way I react to chaos and mayhem, in the way I feel inside, in the insights I’ve had into my girls’ motivations and feelings.

The bottom line is that when I take care of myself, I am a better mom. I feel more peaceful, more present, more patient.

When I know that I’ll have time to recharge and refocus, I’m better able to prioritize my kids needs—not just the basic needs, which obviously take priority, but their emotional and spiritual needs too.

When I go to bed early and read rather than staying up and vegging on the couch, I’m more able to set aside time for my kids during the day, to look them in the eyes, to see things I would have missed otherwise.

It feels noble to sacrifice everything for our kids, to put our lives on hold and pour into their lives while forgetting our own interests and passions, but it’s not really. Because at some point we resent it. Maybe just a little. Maybe just when were interrupted for the fifth time in the toilet or when we wake up and realize we don’t have any interests outside of our home and family and don’t really know who we even are anymore.

And with our actions, we’re telling our kids that when they grow up and become adults or parents, they’ll have to forget their own passions and interests and self-care as well.

Yes, there will always be chores to do, Pinterest projects to attempt, kids who want your attention. But while taking care of things right away is good for productivity, and Pinterest projects make pretty pictures, and being present is worth striving for, it’s okay to leave the chores for later, to choose simple instead of Pinterest-worthy, to make time for the kids and protect time for yourself.

The happiest moms I know take care of themselves. The most fulfilled moms I know take care of themselves. The best moms I know take care of themselves.

P.S. This post isn’t intended as an advertisement, but if you struggle with this idea of self-care, I invite you to join us on the journey of creating a life you love. This idea of self-care is at the heart of each of our Live course topics, woven into the conversations we’re having about simplifying, loving yourself, friendship, focus, and so on.

March has been an interesting book month for me. I’ve been sleeping 10+ hours a day, which tends to cramp my reading style, and I feel a little bit like I’m just bouncing back and forth between topics and styles. In some ways, I like switching between genres, but there was something I really enjoyed about the weeks where I focused on creativity or World War II and really dove into those topics through multiple books.

I really, really enjoyed this book. There were parts I just didn’t get—like the graphic cafe “entertainment” scene, but the look at the living conditions and culture of the working poor in the postwar London in the mid-1950s as well as the discussions of medical care and midwifery kept me reading.

I’ve also started #2, Shadows of the Workhouse, which is a fascinating look at the workhouses of the early 20th century, but I’m struggling to separate fact from fiction since large sections of it are clearly not a first-person narrative like the first book.

This book seems completely at odds with everything else I read this month. The main character is a woman in her early 30s who has recently broken up with her boyfriend of more than a decade and then bumps into “the one who got away”, ushering in drama and awkwardness and more. While it was hard for me to identify with the story in many ways (since I’ve been married to “the one” for more than 12 years now!), it really is a sweet, contemporary love story.

Shockingly, I had not read To Kill a Mockingbird before, and during a discussion of classics, it was the most strongly recommended by several friends. As they predicted, I loved this story and the characters so much, and I’m anxiously anticipating the release of a second Harper Lee novel.

I really wanted to love this story, but it ended up being less about World War II (and more about the family who was already living their own lives in the U.S.) than I’d hoped. It also had quite a few storylines going at once, with too many central characters, and I had trouble really connecting with any of them for that reason.

I also shared my thoughts about all of Liane Moriarty’s books—and why I’m a huge fan of hers—in this post.

Abandoned books

Last week I made the tough decision to abandon (or abandon-for-now) two books that I was reading—Echoes by Maeve Binchy and The Sacred Year by Michael Yankoski—and I loved the recommendations so many of you shared for deciding whether to keep reading a book or not. Because I do buy most of my Kindle books, abandoning them is not something I take lightly, but I think I will give myself permission to do that more freely moving forward!

On my bookshelf

I’m still listening to—and loving—Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This book is a thorough and fascinating look at the life of Abraham Lincoln and his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination as well as the culture and politics of that time. It’s taking me a long time to get through this because we’ve switched to family walks rather than me walking by myself with an audiobook, but I still turn it on every chance I get!